We woke early, grabbed a quick pastry breakfast in Florence, said goodbye to the lovely city and headed north through tunnels and over elevated highways toward Venice, stopping in Bologna for lunch at my friend Amy's suggestion. We dined in an old wine cellar enjoying delicious local fare. We arrived in Venice in the late afternoon and parked our car in one of the many structures that line the outside of the city. And then we crossed the bridge into wonderment!
Venice is a dream world. Really, I've never seen anything like it, and regardless of how I'd imagined it in the past, I'd imagined it wrong. This city is the most incredible combination of tourist attraction and real life. After getting lost, finding our way, and getting lost again we made our way to Hotel Alex to meet our host. We actually stayed at a small B&B only peripherally related to the hotel, the B&B is just too hard to find in the winding streets and canals without assistance.
After settling in we ventured out for a twilight gondola ride and a dinner of fresh fish and homemade gnocchi. The gondola ride lasted about 45 minutes and gave us a great tour of many of the internal canals as well as the grand canal. I was in love with this city! After our ride and our dinner (at a cute restaurant recommended by our host) we just walked around the city, soaking in all the Venice we could in the one night we had.
A friend we made during our stop in Bologna
The fountain in Bologna's Centro
On our way beneath one of the more than a hundred footbridges scattered all over Venice
More incredible scenery
Our gondola buddy. I normally hate birds, especially seagulls,but he was very docile and just chattered to us
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